The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.
—H.L. Mencken, 1921Quotes
The more corrupt the republic, the more numerous the laws.
—Tacitus, c. 117He may be a patriot for Austria, but the question is whether he is a patriot for me.
—Emperor Francis Joseph, c. 1850Television has made dictatorship impossible, but democracy unbearable.
—Shimon Peres, 1995Politics is the art of preventing people from taking part in affairs which properly concern them.
—Paul Valéry, 1943My people and I have come to an agreement that satisfies us both. They are to say what they please, and I am to do what I please.
—Frederick the Great, c. 1770I say violence is necessary. It is as American as cherry pie.
—H. Rap Brown, 1967Democracy is the recurrent suspicion that more than half of the people are right more than half of the time.
—E.B. White, 1944An appeal to the reason of the people has never been known to fail in the long run.
—James Russell Lowell, c. 1865You have all the characteristics of a popular politician: a horrible voice, bad breeding, and a vulgar manner.
—Aristophanes, c. 424 BCIt is impossible to tell which of the two dispositions we find in men is more harmful in a republic, that which seeks to maintain an established position or that which has none but seeks to acquire it.
—Niccolò Machiavelli, c. 1515Every country has the government it deserves.
—Joseph de Maistre, 1811A government which robs Peter to pay Paul can always count on the support of Paul.
—George Bernard Shaw, 1944